Ukraine and BRICS

Suzanne Nossel wants the U.S. to rally major non-Western powers against Russia:

But Washington needs eyes in the back of its head to ensure that the world’s leading rising powers — Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, Nigeria, India, and Indonesia — don’t, deliberately or not, stab it in the back by gradually giving Putin the global legitimacy that the Obama administration wants to deny him.

This argument suffers from the same flaw that plagues a lot of analysis about U.S. relations with these governments, which is the assumption that these states are supposed to end up taking the same position as the U.S. on all major international issues. If they don’t, they are somehow “stabbing” America in the back, and lending legitimacy to the wrong states. That attitude isn’t likely to win over many skeptics in these countries that they should follow Washington’s lead in how they choose to deal with other major powers. India and Brazil are not that interested in helping Washington to punish Russia for their own reasons, but the U.S. also hasn’t done a great job of cultivating these relationships. In fact, relations with India and Brazil in particular have been rocky in recent months. Following the blowup over the mistreatment of the Indian consular official in New York and Brazilian resentment of NSA surveillance, neither government is likely to be very interested in helping the U.S. on Ukraine. This has nothing to do with American “mojo” or “decline,” and reflects the reality that these countries have their own priorities and interests that aren’t going to line up with Washington’s on many occasions.

Perhaps because some Americans are so eager to take sides in foreign disputes that don’t concern us, they don’t quite know what to make of states that don’t try to do the same thing. India and Brazil didn’t support the Libyan war at the U.N., but they didn’t vote against it. They have been opposed to Western intervention in Syria, but have been willing to back less punitive U.N. resolutions on Syria. Despite the fact that they have carefully avoided taking sides, they have nonetheless been regularly accused of “siding” with Russia and China on these issues, because anything less than taking Washington’s side is often strangely viewed as opposition. India and Brazil likewise didn’t support the U.S.-backed Ukraine resolution at the General Assembly, but they didn’t vote against it.

This is not because they approve of what Russia has done, but they are also not willing to strain and damage their relationships with Russia over something that doesn’t matter very much to them, and they don’t share Western governments’ support for punitive measures. That is ultimately why these states aren’t going to be of much help in “isolating” Russia: they are more interested in maintaining good relations with Moscow than they are in making an example of Russia, and there isn’t much that the U.S. can do or say that is going to change that.

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16 Responses to Ukraine and BRICS

If nothing else happens, I will assume Putin got away with what he wanted, because he knew the value of an “Exit Strategy.” The Crimea annexation was a (bad?) gamble but he was smart and walked away from the table with modest winnings. Therefore, most other countries are fine with the Russian maneuvers as it does not risk their national security.

“Ukraine is mercifully distant from most of the developing world. But these countries have long complained that structures like the G-7, G-8, and Security Council are obsolete and ignore today’s global power realities. India, Brazil, and South Africa have been among the most vociferous in demanding a seat at the table in global affairs, and they won’t be able to hide for long in the face of a prolonged international conflagration.”

Talk about having your cake and eating it too! On the one hand, while they may be “complaining” about exclusion and “demanding” more entrée, the fact is the BRIC countries are excluded from, and don’t have entrée into, the structures of power. And, given that reality, why should they act as if they had a seat at the table, when they don’t? They don’t get a say in actually formulating policy, that is for the USA, its European allies, and, at most, from Asia, Africa, and Latin America, handpicked Japan and Korea.

No, the BRIC countries have their role to play, and that is by marching in lockstep with what the USA has decided is the right course of action. Anything other than that would be irresponsible. Eye roll.

And, guess what, it seems to me that if NATO and Russia go to war over the Ukraine, Nigeria, Argentina, South Africa, Brazil, Indonesia and probably India too (as well as China and most of the rest of the world that is not allied with either the USA or Russia), most likely will be able to avoid getting involved in the “conflagration.”

Unless it goes nuclear, in which case it won’t matter much what they say. And, of course, by NOT backing US calls for punishment, it is not as if the BRICS are making nuclear war MORE likely.

The world is becoming multipolar. The unipolar era of the post Cold War is ending, and it is not being replaced with a bipolar US/Russia model. Rather there are many power centers, and their number, and influence, is rising. They are not going to fall into line behind the USA or Russia. They have their own agendas and priorities, and have little or no interest in replaying the Cold War, only with the battle line now in Ukraine rather than in Germany. That was always more of a North Atlantic obsession than it was a worldwide concern. Europe, America, the USSR, those were the main players in the Cold War…the rest of the world was more or less dragooned into playing along. But that tragedy is long over and the current farce can’t be made to fit the bill.

According to westerners anyone that doesn’t join in their circus of non western “liberation” and looting is a criminal, or a threat or a back stabber or what have you.

While legitimate issues and situations around the globe are conveniently molded to give a western twist.

I wonder how US and it’s western cronies can invade Afganisthan, Pakistan,Iraq,Libya,Vietnam, kill thousands, most of them villagers and civilians. Gas them, burn them alive, rape them and still get away with it. Even calling themselves heroes of democracy and patting themselves on the back, while a former Russian territory of Crimea cannot join Russia, even with more than 90% vote in favor.

I wonder if westerners really think that the people of non western world are idiots that can be fed anything,can be mocked, kicked around and then be blamed for “back stabbing” west for not being a pawn in their low level savage wars against some powerless country.

Mostly to steal oil and resources. The last 15 years of wars in Middle east has definitely taken care of one thing, the US is soon going to become an oil surplus state. Magical isn’t it?

The new Cold War is not ideological if you have the inclination and the capacity to look through Western hypocrisy. In bed with the worst regimes in the Middle East, aligning with the Al-Qaeda in Syria, and playing the hyphenation game with India’s terrorist neighbour, Pakistan, the West has exhausted its capital of goodwill with this country. On India’s disputes with China, the United States has been weighing in, more often than not, on the side of China, keen on a peace-making role for it in South Asia. There are also specific cases where the United States has hurt India. In a position to prevent the 2008 Bombay terrorist attack, it let it happen. It won’t hand over the Pakistani-American terrorist involved in the attack.

“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas, or values, or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”(c)
Samuel Huntington, “The Clash Of Civilizations And The Remaking Of World Order”, Simon & Schuster, NY, 1996. Page 51.

The state of the contemporary foreign policy “elites” in the US is pathetic. What other result, other than ongoing discrediting of the West and its intentions, could be produced under this conditions beats me. People simply do not know history, languages, military issues, geopolitics etc. We, normal people, do not go to fix our teeth to auto-mechanic or to social security office, we go to the dentist. This same logic doesn’t apply here when formulating foreign policy. Debacle, after debacle starting from Iraq and ending with Ukraine are irrefutable proves of that.

Nossel is a Hillary protege, noted for the phrase “smart power” in somewhat the way that David Frum is interminably remembered for “Axis of Evil.”

It used to be that organizations like PEN (which Nossel now heads) could be relied on for principled opposition to military interventions. But Nossel is an avowed supporter of the use of military power by “progressive policymakers”, presumably to achieve “progressive” political goals.

I find this Western fixation over Ukraine is nutty. It is worse than Greece when it comes to corruption and it has wacko neo Nazis to boot. I think neo nazis will eventually dominate even more as the IMF austerity plan bites.

What is wrong when leaders make serial mistakes? Policymakers of today do not think long term, only care about short term benefits (which are also failing to materialize and they don’t learn from that?)

A nation with most people near poverty should spend its money investing at home investing in its people. America needs massive human capital investments;but policymakers in DC appear to be lost in some bubble where they unable to connect with reality.

“The downside to these most plentiful jobs, of course, is that most of them pay around half or so of the US median income. ”

it goes back to the way all our elites look at the world: if you are not with us, you are against us. good vs evil. democracy vs autocracy. black vs white

If I am not mistaken, large majority of the members Of Congress never left the soil of the United States. Simply put–they never traveled abroad. US foreign policy at this stage is dominated by very recent immigrants, be it notorious Nuland, whose grandparents were emigres from Russia, or Madeleine Albright, or, for that matter “intellectual elite” of neoconservative movement which is mostly Jewish, with the ties to Russia or, more broadly, Eastern Europe. Zbig comes to mind immediately too, albeit non-Jew. The list is long and it, really, is not a secret that United States foreign policy long ago became the hostage of the competing ethnic lobbies. Even the narratives vary. One of the greatest American minds warned about “passions”. The warning went to waste. This is the price in “defining” one’s nationhood in strictly political creed terms. Not that it is a panacea (look at the England) to see oneself more than just collection of political and economic idealists, but it is a good cog to have in one’s wheels.

Geopolitics is inherently a zero-sum game. There is only so much power and influence to go around, and the current hegemons of the US and the EU want to keep it to themselves. Any time a country dares to step outside their approved boundaries it is targeted for destabilization and “democratization”. The BRICs are not blind to all this, so they stay away from open confrontation, but quietly pursue their interests nevertheless.

Suzanne Nossel is spouting rubbish. Obama is not trying to “deny global legitimacy” to Russia, or to Putin. The US and Russia need to work together on a number of difficult issues, and Russian help is important to the US.